Archive for the ‘Basement Maintenance’ Category

Homeowners who have a house with a basement understand the importance of fixing a leak in the basement. A leak can result in a wet basement and can further result in cracking of the walls or the floors. Here are some tips to fix a wet basement. Firstly, you will have to find out what is leading to the wetting of the basement. Gray areas on the walls and seeping water might indicate the leaking.

If there is standing water in your basement, you should mop it properly until all the water is removed. To adjust the humidity level in the basement you will need to get a portable dehumidifier. It will be great if you can rent a dry-vac. It will soak out all the water from the concrete or the carpet. Then you will have to seal all the cracks using hydraulic cement or concrete sealant. You can also install a sump pump for pumping out the water from the foundation of the house.

The basement is an important area of your house and you really must be confused regarding how to choose the right construction material for you basement flooring. Just go through this and we guess somewhat your problems will be lessened. Basements as even you know are situated below ground level, so as a result it is always prone to dampness, and in areas where the water table is on the higher side, floods follow as a result the basement becomes damp, becoming a breeding ground for moss thus unhygienic becoming its tag line.

So therefore be on guard while choosing the right construction material for your basement flooring, you should always go in for materials which are water resistant and impermeable. Slate, hard or non-porous ceramic tiles, vinyl floorings and linoleum are the construction materials which forms the best ones for basement flooring keeping all the constraints in mind.

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Are you sitting at home with nothing else to do? In that case you most probably feel bored to death during the day. There is a great way to kill time by utilizing the basement of your house. Turn it into a day care centre. You would also be able to make a little extra money by doing so.

How are you exactly supposed to turn your basement into a day care centre? The first task that you would have to do is add on adequate lights. Come what may, you just cannot keep children in rooms which are dull and dark. You would have to enliven the place with light.

Make sure the room is not structurally in a mess. In case there needs some renovations to be done, get them done. One very important aspect that you would have to keep in mind is the wiring. There should be no loose wires that are attached to the room that could put the life of the children in risk.

The basement walls inevitably develop cracks which can be both narrow as well as wide up-to 1.5”. The cracks can be due to many reasons but main reasons include thermal movement and drying shrinkage. The narrow cracks seem innocent but over the time they cause lot of problems. All cracks start leaking at some or other time.

Now cracks can not give structural failures as there are easy ways to fill up the cracks. Pour-in concrete walls can be injected with low pressure epoxy or polyurethane foam. This permanent, cost-effective and reliable method is preferred by everyone. But a concrete block walls can’t have epoxy injection. The cracks are fully filled and the treatment arrests the seepage of water. Drilling is not needed to inject the treatment. The injection is made from the inside the no digging is required. Basement is the diciest place from where the seepage occurs and the complete building decays. Thus basement walls have to be repaired at the earliest.